


To Be the Anvil

by Schaudwen



Category: Thor (Comics)
Genre: Blood Brothers, Breathplay, Loki/Thor/loki, Lokicest, M/M, Thor: Blood Brothers, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:17:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schaudwen/pseuds/Schaudwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is little Loki would deny Thor when his brother comes to him with less than innocent intentions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be the Anvil

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is loosely based off an AU miniseries Marvel published under the name 'Blood Brothers.' Thor and Loki are *old* gods, having been around for millennia, and I always got the impression that Blood Brothers took place in a continuity where Thor was never humbled, and maintained that cocky attitude throughout his very long life.
> 
> [Art for this fic can be found here (NSFW)](http://lokisergi.tumblr.com/post/41268463931/i-have-ever-let-you-drink-deep-of-my-cup)
> 
>  

Loki put aside his still wet quill with a chagrined smile as the sharp blows rattled his door. There would be no peace for anyone, in his rooms or in those adjacent, when Thor demanded his entrance with that confident hammering. Over his very long life Loki had learned that unless you wished to set some very nasty wards it was better to open the door and get out of the way, rather than risk Thor’s.... _physicality_ around Loki’s more _delicate_ crafts.    

Thor’s jarring knock startled the other quiet occupant of Loki’s chambers. Loki had selected her carefully from the crowd that had greeted the warriors returning in glory and accolades, and she had yet to disappoint him. Loki knew the generous curves softening her strong frame to be an enticing sight.

The fact that the concubine had barely made an effort to inflict any irritating attempts of what passed for weak Asgardian conversation or baser familiar interaction on Loki managed to engender a passing tolerability for her presence. Upon Loki’s disregard for her presence she had instead cozied up to the pitiful flame that warmed Loki’s chilled rooms, turning to mind some insignificant scrap of her own craft.

At the knock the concubine moved to serve her prince, pocketing her needlework and gathering her robes about herself as she made to rise from her nest of cushions next to the fire. Loki cut her short with a sharp and impatient gesture. She was to leave the door and his brother to him.

 “A moment, Brother,” Loki called out with an obvious tone of barely restrained irritation. He straightened his bent back and set aside his helm before padding barefoot to the door. Thor relented in his heavy punishment of the thick wood, but Loki could still feel Thor’s presence through it all the same.

That sense had always seemed greater after Thor’s blood had run hot with tenacious battle. It was something that swayed all Asgardians in awe of his brother, though Loki doubted many of them held any conception of where this sense of awe was born.

Loki struck the latch and let the door swing open on its hinges. He immediately turned on his heel and strode mutely back towards his desk instead of greeting his brother, as if the documents there demanded his attention more urgently. Thor did not wait for any more invitation than this to enter Loki’s chambers.

“You did not linger for the feasts, Brother.” Thor, loose and relaxed from his celebrations confidently threw this cheery accusation, unable to fathom a better evening than the one he had shared.

“As you can see I have entertained myself much more to my tastes,” Loki said, feigning annoyance at once again being interrupted from his studies. “And with much fairer company than that of those three dolts you seemed so intent on inflicting on me this evening.” The concubine dipped her head in acknowledgement of Thor’s presence. Unlike Loki, she seemed much more enthused at the prospect of entertaining Loki’s guest than Loki appeared to be.

Stepping away from his desk, Loki sauntered to the table where he had left an unstoppered bottle of wine. It was a finer and more potent vintage than those being toasted in Asgard’s Great Hall. He poured himself a cup with an entitled air, as if Loki would ever drink anything less. The first sip assured him that he had timed the aeration well.

“I made my appearances. Asgard hardly lacks for feasts, and none would miss Loki, even in celebration of a battle well fought. Especially in a celebration of a battle well fought.”

“None would miss you, you say, but true Asgardians are as quick to notice a comrade at a feast as they are to note a comrade at their back in battle,” Thor countered with self-assurance.

Thor continued to subconsciously pace Loki’s room as they bantered, moving with a barely contained energy despite his relaxed posture.

Loki took a sip, holding the rim close to his lips as he answered, “Who need endure comrades or feasts with proles when you, Thor, are willing to come inflict both on Loki?”

Thor shrugged away Loki’s dismissal of everything held in Asgardian society’s highest esteem and approached the low glow of the fireplace. He laid Mjolnir down beside it, hitting the stones of the floor with the sharp and familiar music of the hammer’s resonant tone.

The concubine shifted to her feet and kicked her nest of pillows aside making way for Thor. Finding herself another chair she curled herself into its deep padding. She said nothing, but her dark eyes watched both brothers intently, at once both guarded and languorous. Thor began to prod the banking fire back to a more merry blaze, and Loki left him to his juvenile enjoyments.

Loki returned again to his desk and manuscripts, fingering the maps he had set to one side. Mindful of their age and singular value, he held his finely wrought goblet away from the brittle vellum. Finding the manuscript he was interested in, Loki pulled a less consequential document over the map. It would hardly do for Thor to recognize the field on which the battle of this very morning had met. Loki preferred to assure himself that thinking was a task best left to those more capable than his brother, but such lazy confidence was part of an amateur's art. Satisfied, Loki left his desk to pay Thor’s company the attention it deserved.

By the time Thor was satisfied with the fire, Loki had already begun to loosen his robes. Though he was accustomed to the chill that chased his chambers, he was willing to admit that the heat did not feel entirely unpleasant on his stiff joints. Loki took another sip as he indulged Thor.

Thor straightened from the fireplace and began his approach. Loki could see even from the corner of his eye his brother's smug confidence; Thor's face was heated by more than merely warm fire and heady mead.

Thor prowled, and Loki could feel the power that sought to spend itself emanate from his brother in waves. He could practically hear Mjolnir’s song on Thor’s blood, for all she lay docile and quiet in her corner before the fire, as if playing coy. Thor had drunk deeply of her power this morn, and merely leaving the battlefield did not offer instant sobriety. What was not spent on the battlefield sought out _other_ outlets.

The enemies of Asgard had made a valiant attempt. Their control of the terrain and timing of their ambush should have assured them an outright and decisive victory against even the most hardened Asgardian forces. Not without cost, but they had held the advantage, and surely the victory would have been theirs.

But despite their tactical advantages, the battle had been decided the moment Thor took to the skies with Mjolnir in hand. Nothing made her battlesong rage hotter in Thor’s blood than overwhelming force, the promise of a fight that could little afford mercy or compunction. A fight in which Thor could almost _not_ hold back.

Mjolnir’s battle lust fed Thor’s strength, and together they’d danced across the battlefield with all comers, laying them low with her heavy kiss one after another. And Thor had laughed and spun with her as she pulled him along in her whirling reel.

And so the battle had continued until none had stood to offer the God of Thunder and his hammer any worthy resistance. But still Thor’s blood _burned_. As it always did. As Loki knew it always would.

And once the dust of battle was washed from him, and the festivities stoked his blood towards less martial revelries, Loki knew what Thor would call upon to quench that heat.

“So now that Sif has tired of you this evening, you practically batter down my door. If I didn’t know you well enough to already anticipate your whims, I might be irritated by your cavalier demands on my time and attention, Brother.” Making a show of turning his focus to the interrupted work on his writing table Loki lazily gestured towards the concubine with his cup. “If you are looking for companionship this evening, surely Ketta here would be more than willing to help you find some welcome distraction.”

Thor allowed himself to appreciate the dark haired, curvy concubine as she stretched like a cat, luxuriating in the crook of the seat she had claimed. She did not beckon Thor to herself, but she seemed to purr under Thor’s attention. Thor smiled back at her in obvious appreciation. Loki felt a sneer begin to tug at the blank canvas of his face to see someone preen under the scraps of compliments and attention of Thor Odinson.

“I have not even had her this evening, not that that has ever mattered a whit with you in the past. I am well acquainted with your _appetites_ after such intense battles, Thor. Trying as they may be.” Loki tried to restrain the smirk to his eyes only as he took a sip and regarded Thor over the rim of his goblet.

A grin that was both earnest and predatory split Thor’s face as he turned to meet Loki’s gaze.

“Yes, you know my appetites well, Brother.” Thor made no move towards the concubine, but merely held his brother’s gaze.

“You have given me cause to be very well acquainted with them.” Loki let his impassive expression speak for the ambivalence of the Lord of Lies. If only for a moment.

The pause grew pregnant. "Go," Loki ordered Ketta. "You have served your purpose.”

The concubine strode through the brothers' mutually held gaze without catching even a ripple of their attention. Still, she took her dismissal without a hint a disappointment. The door shut lightly behind her, leaving the old gods to their own devices.

Loki always did like it best when he could extract some sort of admission from his brother’s lips beforehand, and having him turn down such a soft, young, lovely temptation was the toll he had indulged himself in collecting for this night’s engagement.

Wordlessly letting the loosened robe slip from his papery shoulders, Loki stepped past Thor towards his bed, pausing only long enough to relocate the absconded wine bottle within easy reach of his bedside.

The light was not kind. God though he was, he was an _old_ god, and time and hate, war and passions, had marked him, dragged at him, and lined him. His bones sometimes ached with the rain, and the gaunt of his face had been sucked of the fullness of youth that had once framed his gloriously delicate features. But Loki’s pride would deny that he was still, as ever, anything but beautiful. He drained his cup before reaching for the bottle on the table beside his bed.

As Thor peeled off his unbelted tunic and finished loosening the leggings, Loki replenished his wine before reclining into the wealth of pillows, blankets and furs that covered his thickly padded mattress. He was amused to see the evidence of Thor’s intent in coming to Loki’s chambers writ in the little details of his clothing: how Thor had not bothered to finish cinching his trousers, his unlaced boots, and, Loki noted with appreciation, his complete lack of undergarments. Thor had left his suite in a hurry, and Loki enjoyed the lie that it was for his sake that Thor had made such obvious haste; that he wasn’t rushed along by some other reason.

Thor turned to Loki, back to the fire he had undressed before, and something deep in Loki winced. Though Loki’s ego could ever delude himself, even he could see that if Loki was beautiful, then Thor... Thor was unto the Sun. Painful to look upon.

Where Loki was creased and twisted by time, it had ground Thor to a rough polish. Worn to a warm sheen that left some gravelly edges, the overall effect seemed to favor the elder god’s maturity. Thor’s face was harshly used as the rest of him, but it shone with a confidence and a primal, honest forcefulness.

And his eyes, his eyes remained clear and sharp, vessels of both storms and truths. Where Loki’s eyes burned like acid as they searched and ate away at the disguises and deceptions that surrounded him, ever intent on weakness and knowledge that he could turn to his advantage, Thor’s eyes warmed friends with their frankness, or struck men down with their crackling fury. If mortals’ eyes held a vision of their soul, Thor’s eyes held the vision of a storm’s fierce-beating heart.

Thor’s body had ever been strong, rippling with sinew and muscle, but now long past youth the muscle had become a mature man’s thick bulk. His arms, his torso, his legs were the impressive masses of muscle of a man who tore himself to pieces with his great strength in each melee and each battle, and was remade stronger in the aftermath of each victory. Thor approached. Seeing his brother was already half hard, Loki felt himself stir in response.

Sprawled comfortably on his own bed, Loki took a shallow sip from his brimming gilded cup before holding it out to Thor in offering. Thor’s teeth gleamed predatorily as he approached and Loki met his grin with a smirk of his own.

Thor crawled up from the foot of the bed, eyes locked on his prey as he stalked closer. He reached out for the goblet, but instead of plucking it from between Loki’s fingers, Thor captured both the bowl and fingers in his own cradling hand, snaring them in his a warm but unfaltering grip. Not taking his gaze from Loki’s he lowered his head and brought the brimming cup and Loki’s hand to his lips, drinking from that which Loki had offered up.

Loki’s palm tipped as Thor drank more deeply. Impatient to finish its contents, Thor released Loki’s hand and shuffled farther up the bed before sitting back on his heels beside his brother’s outstretched leg. Loki idly twitched his foot to and fro, making a nonchalant show of his boredom as Thor tossed his head back and quaffed the remnants in one pull.

Thor’s eyes blazed with his brother’s challenge, and with an arrogant smile he tossed the cup over his shoulder to clatter on the floor as he leaned forward to meet Loki’s smirk.

Suddenly Thor grasped Loki's bony ankle, as sure and unshakable as the thunder god’s grip on Mjolnir’s haft, and roughly pulled him down the bed to straddle his brother’s legs, Loki's dark hair streaming over his pillows. Loki chuckled darkly as Thor bent to loom over his brother. 

With little ceremony, Thor spat onto his hand and pressed into his brother with two wet, calloused fingers. Loki’s hardening length twitched and he pushed back into Thor’s hand, comfortably taking the stretch without regard to the whisper of burn. Loki rolled his limbs, as if uncoiling himself to drape over the bed in anticipation of what was to come. Thor scissored his fingers, easily opening Loki up to him as he had many times over the centuries.

Already Loki could feel his brother’s cock against his thigh, hot and hard to enter him even as his rough fingers worked him to looseness. Loki snaked a hand down between them, searching for Thor's hard heat, and his brother jerked sharply against his touch.

Thor pulled his fingers from Loki, leaning over his brother's body to where he knew Loki kept his oils. When Thor withdrew the box from where it was stowed, Loki wrestled it from his hands and guided Thor’s attentions back between his legs. Loki suppressed a quiver as he tried to concentrate on finding the right vial before setting the box and the rest of its contents aside.

Loki poured some of the honey-colored liquid into his hand before setting the restoppered bottle within easy reach. The smell of the herbs was strong in Loki’s nose, erasing the scent of anything else, anyone else, except for scent of the oil, fire, and furs. The lingering scent of a woman’s sweat on Thor’s skin was almost completely masked, even as his brother’s presence loomed all around him.

The oil was still chill in his hand as Loki squeezed Thor’s length, causing Thor’s hips to buck in surprise. Loki laughed mischievously and gave Thor a few more slicking pumps of his fist as his brother’s growl of shock turned into a purr in the back of his throat. Thor leaned in to smother Loki’s insolent laugh with rough lips. He licked and nipped at Loki’s lips and jaw before traveling down the line of his throat and capturing the vibrating box of Loki’s suppressed humming laugh under his lips.

Thor pulled his fingers from deep within Loki. Taking his slicked cock in hand, he pushed himself in.

Loki’s moan was deep and guttural, and Thor could feel it under his lips, vibrating at a lower, muffled pitch in his ears. As Thor began to move inside his brother he let his lips wander, continuing to lick along Loki’s throat. His strokes became long and deliberate and Loki was no longer laughing.

Instead he gasped, pulling at Thor’s hair as his brother’s face trailed along his collarbone, nibbling at the delicate skin at the crook of Loki’s neck and shoulder. Loki dug his nails into Thor’s back as his brother sharply pushed himself in deep, earning Loki a bite on the meat of his shoulder.

Any restraint the gods may have clung to broke. Thor reached out and braced himself against the carved headboard as they rode each other with a wildness; Thor thrusting faster and deeper into his brother, even as Loki raked at his brother’s shoulders, desperate for purchase as he pushed back into him with creaking hips to meet his punishing pace.

Thor came with a groaning shout, hips stuttering and then stilling. He lowered himself to his elbows, and Loki was breathing hard beneath him as his brother pulled out uncharitably quickly. The intense fullness and pressure of Thor’s cock slid from his needy tightness, shocking away the edge of Loki’s building orgasm.

Loki reached down to tend to his own neglected shaft, but before he could even begin to bring himself to completion, Thor’s arms let his bulk relax against Loki, pinning his arm between them. Loki struggled in Thor’s arms as the thunder god breathed heavily into his neck. He could not move his hand, pinned and immobile against Thor’s ribs, and as Loki desperately tried to rub himself against Thor’s belly, his brother’s chest rumbled against him in a rhythm not unlike laughter. There was no movement or friction he could find against Thor’s body, and as he hissed his frustration, the crushing weight on his ribs made it difficult to draw in breath.

With the majority of his bulk still compressing Loki’s chest, Thor pulled himself up on his elbows. As Loki turned to snarl at his brother, Thor reached a hand around his neck to grab the sweat-damped hair of his nape. Stilling his brother under his grip he held Loki in place as he leaned in and forced a kiss on his sneering lips.

“I’m not done with you yet, Brother,” Thor growled. The fist in Loki’s hair tilted his neck to the side. Thor nipped below Loki’s ear as he purred, “I want to see you fuck yourself.”

Loki sucked in a shuddering, hard-fought breath, and allowed his intrigue to overrule his exasperation. After the hand that had been fisted in Loki’s hair was coaxed into releasing its grip, Thor rolled off his brother, allowing Loki to find both his magic and his breath much more freely.

Loki closed his eyes, turning his face towards the warmth of the fire. When he opened them, a shadow of smoke seemed to take on a greater density, and he stared at it with a calm as placid and still as a mirrored pool.

The shadow stepped out from the fire and into the room, taking a more substantial shape as it approached them.

The smoke lingered for a moment before settling to become hair with a sheen like polished ebony. The shadow-born figure that looked upon the entwined gods was not a perfect twin to the Loki already lying beside Thor, but it was perfect nonetheless. The copy smiled at them with lips both unmarked by age and full of the sweetness of youth. The lines that marred his face were the light lines of cleverness and laughter, his limbs were sure and lithe, and his hands were nimble, not numbed by time and weather. He was twin to the Loki on the bed, but the old god’s true face had not born the blossom of this copy’s ripe promise in many thousands of years.

As Loki shared a clever smirk with his youthful twin, a mirror to each other’s expressions separated by time, petty jealousies, and self destruction, Loki reveled at the prospect of debauching this reminder of their long-ago youth as Thor watched.

Leaning in, Thor rubbed a hand along Loki's inner thigh and asked, “Can this Loki come? Or is it a less substantial illusion?”

Not taking his eyes off the copy, Loki answered. “For you, Brother, I expended at least that much effort. He is Loki as I am Loki, and know that as you enjoy him, you also enjoy me.  I would not let anyone, not even another Loki, keep memories and such base enjoyments that are _mine_ to themselves.” Loki turned his head back to Thor, dark hair brushing against blond as their foreheads bent together. “Treat this Loki as you would treat me. When he is unmade, everything that is Loki will be returned to Loki again.”

Thor spared the youthful copy one last glance before leaning in to steal the kiss that Loki let him freely take, before shifting himself along the bed for a better view of his brother.

With Thor’s eyes upon him, Loki made a show of stretching languorously before smoothly twisting to a sitting position in the spot where Thor had earlier fucked him hard and left him unfinished. As he reached for the vial he had set aside earlier, the copy Loki stepped onto the bed, and he urged the younger Loki beneath him. Loki hummed in anticipation of how delicious it would feel to lick and taste his youth’s taut and unmarred skin, to see his lovely young face tense and moan as Loki fucked into his twin’s tight hole.

All as Thor watched, he would make this young Loki scream...

Thor reached over and plucked the vial from Loki’s hands. Loki began to protest at his brother’s unexpected interference, but as he turned around, Thor pushed his shoulders back down into the bedding and handed the vial to the younger Loki.

“No. I would see _you_ fucked, Loki.” Loki’s eyes narrowed in challenge as Thor continued on. “And then I will have you again.”

Loki’s stomach clenched at how he said it. A promise delivered with dark intensity, like a vow made over a naked blade.

It made him burn for Thor in anticipation, even as he was denied again. He silently cursed his brother for making him desire it.

Loki spared Thor only a flash of irritation as he allowed himself to be spread before the simulacrum he had fashioned in reflection of what he himself had wished to fuck. The resentment yielded to the more immediate concerns of his body as the youth's slicked length pushed into him.

The young Loki hitched Loki’s hips up with strong hands under his knees, urging Loki to wrap his thighs around that slim waist. Though the youthful Loki lacked Thor’s girth, the youth had not fucked into his loosened hole long before Loki had to fight to restrain his hands from wandering to his needful cock. He twisted his thickened knuckles into the bed furs instead.

Still his irritation lingered. He had meant to glory in the taste of his youth, not be teased at how his youth had managed to fuck old age in the ass. He suspected the subtleties were lost on Thor, who seemed more intent on debauching Loki in every which way his limited imagination could concoct.

Of course, for what Loki considered to be such a limited mind, Thor had certainly managed to outmaneuver him rather tactfully this time. Loki narrowed his eyes as he mentally lay this thought aside for later scrutiny.

Leaning over to brace himself, the young Loki unknotted one of his elder twin's hands from the bedding. Looking over at Thor, he brought Loki’s wrinkled fingers to his lips and gave them a lick before sliding two fingers into his mouth, sucking on them with his smiling, supple lips. Even as he continued to thrust into Loki with rolls of his lean hips, the younger Loki bobbed his head over Loki’s fingers and sucked in his cheeks as Thor stared at them both hotly, rubbing his thigh absently with a rough palm as the cheeky Loki offered him a show. The young Loki turned his attentions back to the twin beneath him and popped the finger from his mouth with one last suck, giving Loki’s palm a slow lick before bending down to devour the older Loki’s lips with a youthful enthusiasm.

Loki could feel the bedding next to him dip under Thor’s weight as the younger Loki broke the kiss he had challenged him to match.

Loki breathed gratefully for the interruption. It hadn’t been so much a kiss as a savaging, as each fought for dominance over the other; the older Loki had had the advantage of an experienced tongue, but the nips of the younger Loki had benefited from having a complete set of teeth. Loki looked up to see that Thor had a grip on the younger Loki’s shoulder and was murmuring conspiratorially in his ear.

Loki had worn that grin often enough to feel a justified sense of trepidation as the youth smiled down at him. The young Loki stilled his thrusting and slid out, delivering a sharp cheeky swat to Loki’s thigh as he pulled back.

Loki jumped, and for an apoplectic moment he could not find his words as he raised his fingers in the beginning of a magical gesture. Thor caught his hand and before he could form the words that would sufficiently reprimand his copy for daring such insolence, Thor interrupted Loki with a kiss of his own, directing his attentions back to his brother.

Thor was growing far too adept at diverting him that way. Loki’s plotting mind turned to how best dissuade his brother from imagining that his lips and kisses were a sufficient distraction to a wrathful sorcerer. Both Thor and the youthful Loki urged him to his hands and knees, ignorant of the vengeance Loki promised his brother as future retribution.

When Loki looked up, Thor was kneeling before him. His brother was already stroking himself to hardness as he slid his fingers through the crown of Loki’s dull black hair and lowered Loki’s lips to his brother’s cock. At the same time Loki could feel the twin behind him spread his cheeks and push himself into Loki’s ass again, finding a different rhythm than before as the strokes stimulated him at a new angle. Loki leaned into Thor, tasting the bitterness of the scented oil as he licked up the shaft with his tongue, bathing his brother’s cock in saliva before taking Thor’s thickness in his mouth.

He sucked and bobbed, concentrating on the shaft in his mouth even as the Loki behind him seemed intent on wringing a greater response from Loki’s body. The youth repositioned his legs to thrust into Loki longer and deeper.

Loki waited for Thor and the young Loki to settle into a steady rhythm as the copy rocked into him from behind and Thor used his mouth from the front. Anticipating the roll of his brother’s hips, Loki straightened his neck and opened up his throat to swallow Thor down with his next thrust forward. Thor groaned, fucking down his throat as Loki met his brother’s thrusts with a hum of appreciation.

Together they found a new pace as Thor and the young Loki thrust in concert, pushing and pulling against Loki and into each other, only pausing for him to catch his breath. Thor reached across the pale, boney sinew of Loki’s back, interrupting the steady flow of their thrusting to pull the young Loki’s face to his as he sucked greedily at the youth’s soft lips. They both settled themselves in deep, filling Loki up from both his warm, fuckable holes.

As Thor’s hard length slid from his mouth, Loki gasped hard. He could feel the beginnings of his building orgasm, and he would prefer to suck Thor off quickly rather than come with his brother shoved down his throat. But before Loki had recovered his breath enough to dip back down to take his brother’s cock again, Thor had begun to move down the bed to where the young Loki was still thrusting into him. Loki felt a shudder pass through the copy, and as he looked back he saw Thor lower an arm behind the younger twin. Loki could feel the youth’s balls brush against him as Thor probed fingers against the spot behind the youth’s sack.

Suddenly Loki was shoved forward, his arms buckling beneath him as his copy thrust into him punishingly hard and fast. His twin’s moans grew heated and urgent as Thor urged him to completion. Loki desperately reached for his own hardness between his legs.

 _He was so close!_ If only he could just-

Thor’s hand clamped down upon his wrist, holding it fast, and Loki spat rage and frustration at his brother. The young Loki came with stuttering thrusts as Loki howled his denial at Thor.

“Pace yourself, Loki.” Thor purred at him. “I wouldn’t want my brother to collapse on me before I was halfway through with him.”

Loki hissed back at Thor, “You arrogant son of a slattern, misbegotten giant spawn-” He sputtered as his youthful twin sunk himself deep. Loki scrambled to recover the words he had sought to throw in his brother’s face, but all he could concentrate on was his desperation for release. He moaned into his shoulder. “And to think there are those who would wonder why Sif banishes you half-done from her bed when you get like this. You are the most insufferable, arroga-” Loki trailed off in a gasp.

As his twin’s hips stuttered against him, spilling into Loki, Thor allowed a fondness to cross his expression as he looked down at his brother.

“And I am grateful to my brother. I have ever found a welcome in your bed; whether I fled nightmares or the displeasure of my lady love already taxed beyond her endurance.”

Thor lowered his voice, almost apologetically. “No one person can hope to contain all of Mjolnir’s battlesong alone when she sings that intensely. Not even me,” he whispered to old Loki alone. “And besides,” Thor chuckled loudly, “I told you I would have you again once your copy was done.”

Thor pulled the gasping Loki from between his brother’s thighs and gently pushed him to the side where he collapsed, boneless, sweaty and blissful. Old Loki however, with his face still shoved into the thick bedding beside his sated twin, still roiled with unspent tension. He weighed his urge to scratch the moronic, sleepy grin off his twin’s perfect features, but the thought was interrupted by Thor’s heat spearing him in one sure stroke. Loki moaned into the soft cushion of his thick bedding and blinked back the wetness in his eyes as his brother filled him so intensely once again.

Leaning over Loki’s back, Thor braced himself against the headboard with one powerful arm. His free hand moved to grasp Loki’s wrist, coaxing it free from where it fisted in the bedding. Thor drew his brother’s hand down, moving it along Loki’s stomach until it brushed between his legs. Loki eagerly grasped his own cock, and Thor pumped his brother’s wrist in a gratifying stroke, controlling Loki’s movement in his own iron grip.

Loki rubbed his face into the bedding beneath him, allowing the sheets to muffle his whimpers of gratitude. Leaning against him, Thor shifted his bracing arm to restrain Loki’s hips, holding him steady as Thor allowed Loki to palm his own shaft.

Thor pumped Loki’s wrist, faster and harder, matching the thunder god’s penetrating rhythm, bringing his brother close. Loki could feel Thor’s hard breaths against his back... Until Thor’s hand stilled Loki’s movements. As he slowed and switched to a longer and slower thrust into Loki’s heat, Thor’s restraining hand on Loki’s wrist stilled to echo the motion. Loki’s moan turned to a keen of frustration as he buried his face against the ache of denial. When Thor’s hand moved Loki’s wrist again, resuming with a new rhythm, Loki again gratefully squeezed and stroked his straining erection.

Thor’s pace slowly quickened, and again, as Loki came close, Thor pulled him back from the edge. The _glare_ Loki leveled over his shoulder at his brother was Thor’s final warning. Thor purred as he finally released his grip from Loki’s wrist.

No longer occupied with his teasing, Thor clamped both hands into Loki’s hips, digging strong fingers into his bony curves with bruising firmness as he pushed him into the bedding.

Thor braced his arms stiffly against Loki’s waist, driving his hips into his brother with sharp, wet slaps. Loki rubbed and pulled at himself desperately, grasping for release even as Thor pounded his brother’s face into the mattress beneath Loki’s cheek. Thor shifted on his knees and thrust in again, finding the root of Loki’s growing orgasm. Thor’s cock found the heat of release Loki had chased; with one hand fisted in the sheets before him, and another hand stroking his manhood, Loki screamed as he came.

The orgasm hit Loki with an intensity that robbed Thor of his pace as Loki’s shuddering muscles rippled along Thor’s still-thrusting cock. Loki felt exhaustion overtake him and his skin tingled with inviting warmth.

And still Thor continued to fuck into his brother, continued using Loki’s body.

Loki heard a wet noise next to him, different and counter-rhythm from Thor’s thrusting in and out of Loki’s well-used hole. He turned his head and caught sight of his younger twin lying on his back beside him. The young Loki’s hips were canted upwards on several thick pillows and his legs were spread wide as the youth worked himself open with well oiled fingers. The copy looked up at Thor with an openly debauched expression, beckoning Thor and his insatiable appetites away from the older Loki long enough to allow him a moment to recover.

Thor pulled out of Loki wetly, prying his fingers from Loki’s hips and allowing his brother to melt into the bedding. Without pause Thor grabbed and spread the unblemished thighs of the young Loki as the twin reached over to his spent reflection, taking Loki’s hand in his and lacing his long fingers between his twin’s bony grip.

The youth cried out with a sweet mix of pleasure and pain as Thor eased his thickness into the young Loki’s tight entrance. Tears stood out in his eyes and the youth concentrated on steadying his breathing as he squeezed the older Loki’s hand in a tense grip that left his knuckles bone white.

Both old gods enjoyed the delicious sight as the Loki between them began to moan and pull his legs tight around Thor’s slowly thrusting hips, even as his twitching muscles still shook against the shock of Thor’s unfamiliar girth. As the young Loki gained more control over his overwhelmed body, he pushed back against Thor’s movements, meeting the thunder god’s thrusts with his own lean and sinewy grinding.

Working his hands around the Loki’s back, Thor pulled the youth tight to his chest. Thor shifted his knees and thighs underneath the Loki’s hips, and then without even a grunt of effort, Thor lifted the youth up in his arms, shifting them both into a sitting position as he speared the young Loki on his cock. The Loki gave a squeak of surprise and let go of his twin’s wrinkled hand as he made a sudden grab for Thor’s neck to steady himself. Thor rumbled in appreciation of the shuddering youth wrapping himself so fetchingly around his steady frame.

The young Loki groaned deep into Thor’s neck, clinging to him desperately as Thor began to move his hips again, pushing into the youth more deeply, making him feel the sensation of Thor spreading him open more intensely. Thor’s strong hands moved down to grasp the smoothness of his ass, dragging the Loki up and down his hard length.

The youth threw his head back, gasping and whimpering as Thor studied the copy’s long, exposed neck. Slipping a hand up the Loki’s rippling back, Thor spread strong fingers around the Loki’s nape, drawing the pale throat to his lips.

The old god traced the tense rope of tendon beside the young Loki’s throat, and felt the smooth, supple skin bob beneath his lips as the Loki tensely swallowed. The youth bent his neck to the side, exposing himself to Thor. The thunder god licked the sweat that trickled down the nape of the Loki’s neck before running his teeth over the muscles of the shoulders that vibrated with the youth’s desperate panting against his chest.

Thor felt the young Loki slip an arm from around his neck down to ghost over one of the hands powerfully clamped over the youth’s lean thigh – hands that dragged the Loki along Thor’s cock in long, deep thrusts. The youth’s coaxing grip on one of his wrists pulled it from the Loki’s leg as he continued to ride the copy along his hard length. The youth guided Thor’s hand up, past his chest, until Thor’s thumb and forefinger paused at the hollow of the young Loki’s throat. He tossed Thor a reckless smile and gave the hand around his throat a squeeze, even as he ground his hips down hard onto Thor’s cock.

Watching him take a breath, Thor kissed the young Loki before beginning to squeeze, pinching off the pulsing flutter underneath his roughened fingertips. After some long moments, the Loki began to tense up and the beginnings of pink turning to red began to tinge his already blushed and sweat dampened face. As the instinctual tight, trembling grip of the arms that wrapped around Thor’s frame subsided, the youth’s face split into a heady grin.

Thor continued to fuck him, even as the young Loki’s chest and throat shook with choked off laughter and his reddening face took on a dreamy look. Thor watched the color deepen just a little more before releasing his grip on the youth’s throat. The young Loki gasped and clung to Thor for a moment, catching his breath… Before pushing his neck against the bulky hand that still rested against the hollow of his throat. _Again._

Again and again Thor squeezed the life out of the echo of his brother, even as he fucked into his writhing body. And again the young Loki would laugh in his face, urging him to do _more, harder, to tear him apart._  Thor was only too happy to oblige.

And Loki watched and waited.

No longer satisfied with remaining a spectator, the old Loki rose and pressed himself against the young Loki’s back. Reaching a hand between Thor’s powerful thighs he cupped his hand to grasp at Thor’s balls, even as Thor continued to drive himself into the younger Loki.

The noise that rumbled from deep within Thor was more akin to a growl than a groan as he threw Loki a lusty and challenging grin across the youth’s shoulder. Loki gave his balls a squeeze that stuttered Thor’s fucking before pressing another hand between Thor and the youth’s sweat dampened abdomens, grabbing hold of the his twin’s stiff and needy prick.

Taking Loki’s signal, Thor again squeezed the youth’s throat, cutting off his heady moan as Loki began to stroke his twin mercilessly. With a final gentle squeeze, Loki let go of Thor’s balls to let him fuck the young man in earnest.

The young Loki came wordlessly, stiffening between them and striping Thor’s stomach and Loki’s fist with ropes of cum. Thor released the youth’s throat and clutched him tightly to his chest before rolling backwards to lay himself down on the bed. Thor dragged both Lokis down with him, continuing to fuck hard into the young Loki that still twitched and shook on top of him with the aftershocks of the youth’s own intense orgasm. The come smeared wetly between their muscled torsos, slicking the old Loki’s hand as he extracted it from where it had pressed between them. Thor came with a shout, roaring his completion, before releasing his crushing hug on the lean Loki in his arms.

They laid there, their limbs sapped with exhaustion and feeling the heat of their violent fucking smolder along the flush of their face and shoulders, calves and buttocks.

This moment was as it ever should be, Loki thought. Thor’s arrogance and pride driving him to reckless, thoughtless action, with Loki there to guide his storms, give them shape and move him towards greater purpose and destiny. On the battlefield, with Mjolnir’s song driving his dance, Thor was mighty and terrible to behold. None could stand against him, not even Loki. But beneath his power was passion, as quick in love as in wrath, and most of all, malleable and vulnerable to attack and manipulation by any who knew this chink in his brother’s armor.

Though they were not brothers by birth, they were brothers by blood, and blood would ever call Thor back to him. It gave Loki a handle on Thor’s open heart. And had they not seen so many times how much they could accomplish when Loki took that handle and they moved together?  

Together, united, instead of Thor shoving him away, too proud and petulant for his vile weakling of a brother. Loki had made him pay for every insult, but still Loki could see how both suffered each time their eternal fraternity was twisted by his brother’s shortcomings.

Could Thor not recognize, even as his blood cooled, how it was Loki who pushed him beyond his normal bounds? Did he not see that just as Loki schemed and wrought his most glorious arts in the service of Thor’s defeat, that Thor had in turn earned his greatest glories by Loki’s invisible hand?

Even here, now, did not the brothers push each other to greater debaucheries, mingling pleasures as he never found without his brother’s hand by his side?

If only he could make Thor _see_.

 _You could always tell him your part in this day’s glorious victory_ , a voice in the dark destructive chaos of his mind mocked him. Loki pushed the voice back, burying it in the place where all the lies Loki that told himself left little truths buried.

Loki rolled himself off the bed, feeling a twinge in his back as he moved. He grabbed Thor’s ankle, outstretched from where his brother had fallen into a lazy, contented sprawl. He yanked Thor roughly down the bed, pulling his heavy bulk away from the younger Loki’s arm, in a mockery of how Thor had begun his night in Loki’s bed. He had half-dragged his brother off the bed and was already coating himself with a generous amount of oil when Thor looked up at him. Loki hefted Thor’s dangling legs to hook over his bony shoulders.

Familiar enough with rough treatment to pay such handling no mind, Thor let his arms drape above his head and settled into relaxation. With his blond hair streaming in a tangled halo on Loki’s sheets and a dozy smile on his face, the thunder god painted an almost coquettish visual as he lay there stretched out before Loki, glistening and debauched on his bed.

Loki massaged Thor’s generously muscled ass before slipping his finger’s between Thor’s cheeks and Thor rumbled his approval. Loki could not remember the last time Thor had denied him this pleasure; Thor had been willing to spread his legs for Loki for many centuries yet, especially when his brother came to him with his blood burning this hotly.

Loki’s finger’s pushed their way into Thor’s tightness, and for a rare moment Loki was able to fight the urge for mischief. Loki was surprisingly unwilling to shock Thor out of his peaceful haze with a cruel twist as he worked his brother open. He applauded himself for the fact that this time it hadn’t even been an incredibly hard urge to fight.  

When Loki entered Thor, it felt like everything was right. Slowly he pushed himself in, and Thor’s body accepted him. He was overwhelmed with his brother’s enduring warmth and a feeling of bliss that threatened to sweep away Loki’s fragile sense of self. In an existence in which he had no place, no kindred he would call his own, and no home, not even in his hall at the edge of Asgard’s borders... It was here that Loki could feel he belonged. Beside Thor. Inside Thor. Together with his brother at the seat atop the nine realms with his hand to guide Thor’s fist.

It was a place he would fight for, if he had any conception of how he could rightly win what Thor had only ever gifted him in piecemeal.

Thor groaned as Loki fucked into his brother’s delicious hole. The thunder god turned his head with a beckoning smile, and as Loki glanced to follow its direction, he caught sight of his youthful twin watching them both intently. Thor continued to smile invitingly as he stroked his still spent dick at the other Loki’s approach. With his free hand he lazily reached up to run his hand through the Loki’s glossy curtain of hair, lacing his fingers through the youth’s scalp until they had tangled at the back of his head.

Even as Thor guided the young Loki down to where he stroked himself, his heavy lidded gaze remained fixed on the sharp, lined face of the brother he had always known. The old Loki wrung a gasp from Thor’s throat as he shifted his thrusts, driving his hardness along Thor’s sensitive inner wall, seeking to emphasize the movements of the young Loki. The youth licked and teased Thor, kissing along the underside of his limp cock before pausing to play a sharp tongue around the skin of Thor’s head. Thor broke his eye contact and he threw his head against the mattress, eyes screwing shut as he groaned deeply.

Before long Thor was hard again, and with the combined efforts of both Lokis he was moaning and shouting, coming undone beneath them. With a sudden violent movement, Thor snarled his hands in the young Loki’s hair, grinding into the youth’s face as his back arched sharply upwards. Thor vibrated beneath him, and Loki could feel his brother’s muscles spasm powerfully around him, squeezing his cock as only Thor’s body could: shaking Loki to his foundations.

Thor came, and the copy Loki swallowed, his breath blasting heavily against the wiry hairs of Thor’s groin as he sought to keep pace and suck down the jets that shot across the back of his throat. Despite his efforts, come dripped from his mouth, falling messily along Thor’s abdomen. Thor released his grip on the young Loki’s hair, and after the youth licked his lips clean of the come he had already drunk down, he dipped back down to lap at Thor’s stomach, cleaning up the rest of the mess he and Thor had made.

As his twin licked Thor clean of semen, Loki continued to fuck his brother, watching intently as Thor chuckled breathlessly at him between tired, panting shudders. Just as the younger Loki began to pull away, Thor grabbed the copy’s wrist and dragged it back to his length.

Smiling up at the elder Loki with the same predatory smile Thor had used as he stalked his brother and confessed how well Loki could anticipate his desires, Thor dragged the young Loki’s hand across his unsubsiding erection.

“You are not done yet. Can’t you see I’m still hard?” Thor murmured to the youth, even as his gaze remained locked on the old god between his legs.

Loki gave Thor a savage thrust, and with long, lean fingers he shifted one of Thor’s tree trunk legs to wrap around his waist.

“Watch yourself, Brother. If we tire of your insatiable need to be so thoroughly fucked, we may decide to see how well that prick lasts after I conjure an entire army of Lokis for you to fuck.” Loki pressed the knee that still remained on his shoulder into Thor’s chest as he leaned in close. “...And be fucked by,” Loki finished with a purr near Thor’s ear.

The leg around Loki’s waist pulled him in closer. Thor met his brother’s hard fucking as he gave his gleeful challenge of an answer.

“Bring that army with me to the next battle, and we would not even have to bother returning to Asgard’s halls before we could begin our celebrations.” Thor reached up to press his palm over Loki’s beating heart. “If what it took for me to see my brother on the battlefield beside me was for you conjure an army of Lokis, I’d gladly fuck a regiment or two for the honor.”

Loki met his brother’s jest with sharp sarcasm. “Yes, I’m sure you’d appreciate an entire heavy infantry of stringy-armed sorcerers to follow you into battle, if only so you could ravage whatever was left of their entire corps right there on your victorious battlefield.”

 “As long as you didn’t conjure forth a mounted cavalry, Brother. Even I have my limits.” Thor smiled back at him, painfully open and unguarded.

Loki drew back, closing off as he lowered Thor’s hips and pushed his massive bulk a little further up onto the bed.

The younger Loki shoved pillows beneath Thor’s hips, and Loki lifted a leg to rest one knee on the bedding. Loki lowered Thor’s other knee from his shoulder to straddle his waist as he continued to fuck his brother while keeping a leg still braced on the floor.

Swinging himself over Thor’s torso, the young Loki bent to lower himself over Thor’s still-hard cock. As the youth braced himself against Thor’s chest with one hand, he reached behind with the other, guiding Thor’s manhood to press against his opening. Thor’s fingers dug into the Loki’s thighs and he groaned as the youth drew himself down to take the old god in, seating himself to the hilt.

The elder Loki drew his palm in relaxing patterns along his twin’s shoulders as Thor stretched the youth anew with his girth. The young Loki leaned his head back against his older incarnation’s shoulder, his brow marred with a tense crease as his body shivered to relax and accept Thor’s intruding manhood. The twin Loki paused there, leaning against Loki as the youth’s body adjusted. When the youth was finally ready he took a deep breath, and with a gentle push from the Loki behind him, he leaned himself forward, palms planted on Thor’s chest as he began to move himself along Thor’s filling length.

With Loki’s sharp, digging hands stilling Thor’s hips, only Thor’s grip on the young Loki’s thighs and ass dictated the rhythm of the youth grinding on top of Thor. As Thor and the young Loki found their pace, Loki shifted his, spreading Thor’s legs wider as Loki thrust into his brother, finding the angle that had made Thor come for him before.

As Loki leaned into the knee that dug into his bedding, Thor jerked and tensed as Loki found what he was looking for. Thor’s powerful legs tightened around him, threatening to trip his rhythm as Thor pulled him in deep. Biting his lip sharply, Loki slipped a hand under Thor’s knees, shifting his brother’s heels from where they dug into his backside, urging his ankles instead to lock farther up Loki’s back. Loki’s hips snapped deep into Thor and he could feel his brother tremble as he continued to stimulate him from deep within. Loki licked his lips, eager to see Thor come undone beneath him once again.

The young Loki riding Thor’s cock arched his back as Thor’s urging hands grew more desperate and controlling. The youth again leaned back against his older twin’s shoulder as Thor began to fuck into him mercilessly. With strong hands that dug painfully into the youth’s hips and ass, Thor dragged him along his cock as the young Loki turned his head and gasped into his twin’s time-worn neck. Loki freed a hand and turned his reflection’s face to meet his lips, tasting the young Loki’s mouth as he slipped another hand down the youth’s stomach until he found his twin’s bobbing cock.

Fisting the youth’s hard erection in an oiled grip, Loki let the movements of Thor’s own hard fucking push and pull the copy’s prick in his hand. The young Loki cried out, overwhelmed, against Loki’s lips. Reaching up with soft hands the young Loki ran his fingers through the dull black hair that framed his elder twin’s face.

The young Loki came against him with a high and shrill cry, tensing under Loki’s hand as the youth’s cock surged in his grip. Loki released him as the youth snapped forward, folding himself over Thor’s chest and spending himself on Thor’s belly. Loki could feel Thor shake with the young Loki’s orgasm, and he could see the flare in Thor’s storm-blue eyes as his brother’s control began to shred.

Loki intensified his own fucking, but the sight of Thor falling apart beneath him, the feeling of his brother’s ankles dragging him in deeper, and that ring of muscle squeezing against him as waves of Thor’s pleasure thrummed through Loki’s body, robbed him of his balance. Loki felt his balls tightening and his control begin to fray in turn.

With the sound of Thor’s groans in his ears, he imagined his brother moaning _‘Loki’_ in that same desperate tone, and he came with Thor’s name on his lips.

As Loki spent himself deep inside Thor with stuttering hips, he dug desperate fingers into the shoulders of the twin still bent double over Thor’s chest in front of him.    

Starting to recover some clarity as a haze of contentment threatened to envelop him, Loki moved a hand down between him and his brother. With shaking fingers he massaged against the area between Thor’s sack and where Loki was still balls deep in his brother. He rubbed there deeply and urged his oversensitive and softening shaft to move against that spot inside, coaxing Thor to come for him. He could feel his brother’s muscles flutter and tighten around his cock, and Loki continued to rub as Thor tensed.

Loki’s pelvis grated under the flex of Thor’s powerful tensing knees as Thor came with a thunderous yell, which he muffled in the young Loki’s neck. Loki kept himself seated deep in Thor as his brother came, watching as Thor spilled himself into his twin’s fingerprint-marked ass. The young Loki whimpered against Thor’s neck as Thor bit down hard on the meat of youth’s leanly-muscled shoulder, still groaning as the last of his orgasm was wrung from him.

As Thor stilled, laying there spent and breathing hard, Loki felt a warm glow of contentment sap the endurance from his limbs. The young Loki was a dead weight, sniffling into Thor’s chest as Thor licked the angry red mark he had left on the youth’s shoulder.

Loki slid from Thor’s heat, pushing himself off of Thor’s trembling knees before moving to lie down beside his brother’s sweat-dampened side. After a moment, Thor rolled onto the empty side of the bed, sliding the younger Loki from where he had lain limply on Thor’s chest to curl against Thor’s other side. He settled back between the two Lokis, breathing a contented sigh.

Loki reached to the bedside table for his cup before recalling how Thor had nonchalantly thrown it over his shoulder to clatter on the floor. Loki frowned and reached over Thor’s chest to savagely pinch his youthful twin’s shoulder. The younger Loki started from his languor and met Loki’s glare with a glare of his own. After a wordless moment the youth sighed and rolled off the edge of the bed to search for the errant cup.

Thor, lacking any of Loki’s compunctions or etiquette in regards to consuming things in a bed one might eventually sleep in, reached for the still mostly full bottle and brought the drink to his lips. A trickle of dark liquid dripped down from the corner of his mouth and onto Loki’s sheets as he took a deep pull. Thor handed the bottle back to his brother and Loki eyed the stain with distaste, eventually rubbing at the wetness with his brother’s straw blond hair.

Loki pulled himself upright, reclining against the nest of pillows propped on the headboard. Aside from lacking the cup, for which his copy still searched beneath the bench, it was not unlike how he had sat when he had beckoned Thor to his bed.

Beside him Thor basked, smiling and content against Loki’s side, as if confident and assured that he would ever be welcomed whenever he dared share a scrap of himself with his brother. Loki hated that look. It made him feel predictable, and it made him hate the Fates that made it so.

Though the centuries and millennia marched on, Fortune’s favor on her golden son remained unwaning. As ever, Thor moved through Asgard in much the manner as he moved through Loki’s chambers: with the knowledge that where Thor walked, he would be welcomed with love and his every desire would be the will of the entire realm to meet.

Loki loathed the way the realms rolled and fawned at Thor’s feet, like a pack of loyal dogs. And Thor would merely pat it and walk on, frustratingly ignorant of how dear, how valuable even, the power he wielded over people’s hearts was. It was a power that lay beyond the means and measures of some, yet Thor had been born into it as surely as he had been born into every other wealth the thunder god held.

Even Loki was not immune. For all he loathed the way Thor commanded loyalty with that confident smile that assumed he already owned your camaraderie, Loki could do no less to deny his brother when Thor turned that smile on him. It was only through breaking Thor’s heart that he could ever disarm even a fraction of his brother’s power.

But even that was only a delay, a vent for Loki’s own frustrations. Loki could do little to deny his brother when Thor came to him, sure in the knowledge that Loki would relent when Thor made a place for him at his feet.

Loki hated himself for it, but he knew there was little he would not do to feel Thor hot against his skin, to be at his brother’s side in that way that seemed to burn away all Loki’s resentment, filling him instead with a _want_ for Thor, if only just for a fraction of a moment.

If Loki thought his brother held any concept of this deficit within himself, there would be nothing he would not do to see Thor look to Loki in search of that same sense of completion for everything he lacked. As it was, Loki had settled on doing nearly that much just to see Thor smile as he fucked him.

One day Thor might awaken to his own shortcomings. More likely than not it would be a day long after Odin was dead and Thor flailed to hold with might alone everything Odin All-Father had held with both knowledge and might combined.

Or possibly Thor would be so blinded by his self-assurance  that he would attempt to do as his father had done and hang himself from Yggdrasil to wrestle knowledge into his thick skull by force of will and strength alone. Loki prayed as only a god could pray that he would be there to laugh and mock at Thor as he made the attempt, for surely his failure would be inevitable. Surely the path of Odin and Mimir was not the path for one such as Thor.

Perhaps Loki would let Thor hang there just long enough for his brother to learn that he needed Loki. Or perhaps he would just let Thor truly hang for his hubris. He could just imagine the horror of Thor’s friends as he told them with utmost verity that Thor had gone to hang himself for knowledge, only to ‘hang himself for truth.’ Loki mentally frowned at the poor pun, but assured himself he’d surely have millennia more to refine the word play before the opportunity to employ it presented itself.

Loki was broken from his reverie by his young copy impatiently waving the recovered cup in front of his nose. In desperate need of a stiff drink, Loki took the cup without commenting on the young Loki’s sass and poured himself generously of the contents that remained to the bottle. He drank demurely but deeply, chasing away his dark thoughts as the young Loki returned to his place in the bed, snuggling unabashedly against Thor’s solid frame. Thor absently rubbed the youth’s head, as if rewarding an affectionate hound. Loki took a deep drink, feeling the burn against the back of his throat.

Loki eased but did not completely relax, instead turning his mind to run the well-worn tracks of his plots and schemes as his own calm meditation. Loki knew it was premature to get comfortable. The moment would be too short to bother and play pretend. Thor would not be staying.

Even as Loki thought it, Thor sighed and stretched, extracting himself from the young Loki’s encompassing arm and leg so as to make his way off the bed. Robbed of Thor’s warmth, the young Loki rolled over again, facing away from his older twin and dragging a pillow with him.

As Thor stepped into his leggings and searched out his tunic and boots, Loki regarded his brother and continued his musings.

Though Thor had fought hard in the recent battles, very little evidence of this day’s heroics still marred his brother’s skin, even as the aftermath of Mjolnir’s bloodlust still felt hot on Loki’s. Thor had fought valiantly and won himself honor and glory of which the skalds would be singing for centuries. Or at least until the next great victory Thor charged into and won almost single-handedly. It was battles like those fought today from which Thor’s legend was woven; spun in battle and dyed in blood. Legends that would always forget Loki.

Thor paused and picked up the robe Loki had discarded earlier, giving it a sniff. He turned to Loki. “I will return this to you on the morrow, Brother.”

“If you dare drop my robe in the bath again I am liable to be very cross with you.” Loki warned him archly. Thor took his words as warmly as if Loki had given him every blessing to dress himself in his brother’s silks after washing away the evidence of their rough fucking from his skin.

Thor called Mjolnir to himself for the short flight to his hand and paused before the door. He spared Loki one last smile. “You should join us on the battlefield next skirmish, Loki. I would much rather see my brother battle by my side than know the strength and secrets of those which threaten us.”

“And I would rather know the enemies I face than follow you blindly to Valhalla, Brother. You know my strength is not yours and my battles are not yours. In this, Loki would prefer to remain Thor’s shadow.”

 _How unfortunate that unlike a shadow, you do not grow when Thor is basked in greater and greater greatness_ _,_ a voice from within Loki whispered. Loki’s gaze did not waver from Thor as he took another sip from his cup.

Thor shook his head at the old exchange and shut the door behind him as he departed.

Alone at last, Loki set his drink aside. With a lightly blown breath in the direction of the hearth, the fire that had warmed his chambers to an uncomfortably stuffy degree guttered and banked down to low embers once again. Dragging up his sleeping furs from where they had been kicked away, Loki curled against the back of his dozing twin and closed his eyes. The youth pressed himself backwards against Loki’s thin chest as he pulled the furs to cover them both.

As he wrapped an arm and kicked a leg across his lithe copy’s frame, he could smell Thor’s scent on the youth’s skin, mixed with the aroma of the scented oils he had bid his brother use. With his eyes closed, lying in the spot Thor had dampened with his sweat, Loki focused only on the sensations of weight and warmth against him as the memory of Thor’s presence lingered in his senses.

Loki knew the bed would be empty upon awakening in the morning, but for the moment he would expend the energy it took to share his bed with a body that almost smelled like his brother.

At daybreak he would resume studying the documents Thor’s attentions had forced him to abandon. It would take some work and he admitted he was no tactician, but his study of the old maps had served him once already. Even if their adversaries’ leaders had all met their end on Mjolnir’s bloody head, Loki knew that enough of the enemy force had fled the site of their ambush-battleground to almost pose a significant enough threat...

That is, they would pose a threat, should some silver words spur the enemies of Asgard to regroup and retake the standard of their hopeless war.

Given the right battleground, the right tactics, the right _words_ , Asgard’s enemies could be propped up to appear enough of a menace that they could even call Thor to the battlefield again.

To hear Mjolnir’s blood song again, Loki would be the anvil upon which Thor smashed his foes.

 


End file.
